Confucius Quotes

Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth.

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

The virtuous will be sure to speak uprightly; but those whose speech is upright may not be virtuous.

Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

If I have one wish which is greater than another, it is, if I had the power, to make men do right; to make them stop their swearing, their lying, their deceiving, to stop trying to injure the innocent, and begin to be honest and upright in all their dealings with one another and honor the name of the Deity.

Man is born with uprightness. If one loses it, he will be lucky if he escapes with his life.

Live the principles and the values. Almost nobody in America is living them. Learn the truth. Live the life of our founders. Be a decent, righteous, forthright honest man or woman.

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

The rewards of integrity are immeasurable. One is the indescribable inner peace and serenity that come from knowing we are doing what is right; another is an absence of the guilt and anxiety that accompany sin. Another reward of integrity is the confidence it can give us in approaching God. When virtue garnishes our thoughts unceasingly, our confidence is strong in the presence of God.

You don't luck into integrity. You work at it.

Prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one's whole life.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

Success gives the character of honesty to some classes of wickedness.

All the gold upon the earth and all the gold beneath it, does not compensate for lack of virtue.

A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

There is no greater wealth than Virtue,And no greater loss than to forget it.

But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant.

If virtue precede us every step will be safe.

Integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences.

Honesty is nothin' compared to decency.

Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no persuasion move thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollity; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.